Field Recordings from the Inside
Essays
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Using as its epigraph and unifying principle Luc Sante’s notion that “Every human being is an archeological site,” Field Recordings from the Inside provides a deep and personal examination at the impact of music on our lives. Bonomo effortlessly moves between the personal and the critical, investigating the ways in which music defines our personalities, tells histories, and offers mysterious, often unbidden access into the human condition. The book explores the vagaries and richness of music and music-making—from rock and roll, punk, and R&B to Frank Sinatra, Nashville country, and Delta blues—as well as the work of a diverse group of artists and figures—Charles Lamb, music writer Lester Bangs, painter and television personality Bob Ross, child country musician Troy Hess, and songwriter Greg Cartwright.
Mining the often complex natures and shapes of the creative process, Field Recordings from the Inside is a singular work that blends music appreciation, criticism, and pop culture from one of the most critically acclaimed music writers of our time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bonomo's latest book incorporates autobiographical themes of his previous collection, This Must Be Where My Obsession with Infinity Begins, and an obsessive desire to understand how artists do what they do . Bonomo is fascinated with the ways in which songs are "less a tune than a field recording from inside your body, your heart chambers' v rit " as he looks at the ways music influenced and underscored events throughout his life. The best essays here extend that gaze beyond his own life and into those of other artists and their audiences; especially good is "Bafflement, Clarity, and Malice," a reverie on the power of lyrics that express "their profound simplicity, their old newness." Another standout in this great collection is Bonomo's warm look at the late novelist Larry Brown and Brown's love of music, as well as is his 584-page screenplay about Hank Williams.
